AS YOU sip your morning tea, spare a thought for Harendra Das. The chances are he gave his life to get it in your cup.

For more than 30 years he managed tea plantations in India’s northeastern state of Assam, where Charles and Robert Bruce founded the modern tea industry in the 1830s. Then, one humid evening in September, he was shot dead near his home on the Hoolonghabi Tea Estate. He was 55.

Looking around the estate, with its pretty steep-roofed bungalow and manicured lawns, it is hard to imagine the sound of gunfire intruding on such a tranquil setting.

But this is the front line of a bloody separatist conflict that has reignited since September, claiming dozens of lives and threatening to cripple Assam’s world famous tea industry.

“I used not to have a lock on the gate,” said Ranjit Baruah, the 59-year-old owner of the Hoolonghabi estate founded by his grandfather. “Now nobody dares go out, and my family doesn’t want me to stay here.”

Police say Das was killed by the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) — one of 30 separatist movements in India’s northeast — after he refused to meet its extortion demands.

The front has been fighting for an independent Assam since 1979, accusing the federal Government of plundering the region’s tea, oil and coal resources while neglecting basic infrastructure and services.

In August the Government announced a ceasefire, raising hopes for an end to the conflict that has killed 10,000 people. But within six weeks fighting flared again. Last week 15 people were killed when a bomb exploded in Guwahati, the Assam capital. Ulfa was blamed. Three days later, soldiers shot dead a five-year-old boy during a battle with Ulfa.

Such violence has long deterred investors and tourists from the region; the fear now is that another prolonged upsurge could destroy a tea industry mired in debt and struggling to cope with competition from China and East Africa.

Even before the ceasefire collapsed, Ulfa was stepping up demands for money from local businesses, especially tea plantations. “They’re very vulnerable, living in isolated areas and working outdoors,” said Dhiraj Kakati, secretary of the Assam branch of the Indian Tea Association. “They can’t afford to pay — they can barely meet their own costs.”

Many of Assam’s 800 tea gardens have massive debts and overheads because of their welfare obligations, colonial-era infrastructure and geographical isolation. Now they have to choose between employing private security guards or paying protection money to Ulfa.

Das was killed for refusing to pay a million rupees (£10,500); larger gardens have been asked for as much as 15 million. Ulfa denies being engaged in extortion, but it admits to levying voluntary “extra-constitutional taxes” and claims to have the support of most of Assam’s 26 million people.

Assam was an independent kingdom for more than six centuries until its conquest by the British in 1826. When India won independence, it was one of the country’s three wealthiest regions. Today it is one of the three poorest states, even though it produces more than half of India’s tea and 17 per cent of its oil.

“The people of Assam feel bruised and betrayed,” said Dilip Patziri, an Assamese activist appointed by Ulfa to negotiate with the Government. “They feel they have a distinct culture and a separate identity.” He also accused Indian troops and police of kidnappings and killings.

The Government denies such charges and accuses Ulfa of targeting civilians in a campaign as much about making money as winning independence. “These attacks are just to prove their existence,” Ripun Bora, a minister and spokesman for the Assam government, said. “Nobody here wants sovereignty — how could Assam be independent?” Mr Bora insisted that the door was still open for peace talks. But last week the Government launched a massive counter-insurgency operation, sending 2,000 additional paramilitary soldiers to the region.

Indian security officials say they will crush Ulfa, but others question their heavy-handed tactics. “We’ve diagnosed the problem, but we’re treating the symptoms and not the cause,” said Absar Hazarika, district magistrate of Tinsukia, the worst-affected area. “Poverty is the root of the insurgency and development is the remedy.”

Four years ago he started an organic citrus farm in Guwahati employing 10,000 people. Since then their annual income has risen twelvefold. Now he wants to grow organic fruit, aromatic plants and herbal medicines in Tinsukia.

However, he is struggling to find support within an inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy. “Nobody’s interested,” he said. “We can grow anything here. Why only tea?”

GATHERING STORM IN A TEAPOT

Industry statistics: ICRA

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